MP 1,1-5,1 OpenCore and the 2008 Mac Pro 3,1

[parisc]

I bought a low cost USB hub and have a logitech keyboard and mouse plugged into it. Knivo BTD400 bluetooth works plugged directly into MacPro. I couldn't get Apple A1255 keyboard to work. Apple mouse will connect. Bluetooth speakers work. OCLP patches must be installed for bluetooth. DVD doesn't work. Builtin audio support came back.

 

[pullman]

Thank you for the suggestions. I have an A1314 keyboard which works, as does the A1339 trackpad. The A1255 is the older version with three AA batteries, right? I changed the bluetooth card a number of years ago to the BCM94360CD and so far I haven't noticed any difficulties.

One thing though – must I "Build and install OpenCore" using the OCLP app on the volume I installed Monterey on?

I would have thought that was done as part of the installation process but Mr Macintosh does that at the end of his Youtube guide.

Cheers
Philip

I bought a low cost USB hub and have a logitech keyboard and mouse plugged into it. Knivo BTD400 bluetooth works plugged directly into MacPro. I couldn't get Apple A1255 keyboard to work. Apple mouse will connect. Bluetooth speakers work. OCLP patches must be installed for bluetooth. DVD doesn't work. Builtin audio support came back.

 

[parisc]

Yes, I believe it is a good idea to "Build and install OpenCore" on the volume where Monterey is installed. Then, OpenCore-Patcher will be installed in the applications folder and you don't have any dependency on the install disk. Set your startup volume to your Monterey volume. Then your system will boot automatically into Monterey. System upgrades will then install without intervention.

I just updated to Sonoma 14.4.1 and everything went smoothly with OCLP 1.4.3.

 

[pullman]

Thank you for explaining that. It sounds like a good idea to do.

Out of curiosity, do you notice any other things which do not function in Sonoma? I read on Dortania of a few things which are shaky as yet. The reason I selected Monterey is that it's a bit older and so hopefully many issues have been identified/ironed out.

Yes, I believe it is a good idea to "Build and install OpenCore" on the volume where Monterey is installed. Then, OpenCore-Patcher will be installed in the applications folder and you don't have any dependency on the install disk. Set your startup volume to your Monterey volume. Then your system will boot automatically into Monterey. System upgrades will then install without intervention.

I just updated to Sonoma 14.4.1 and everything went smoothly with OCLP 1.4.3.

 

[parisc]

I only use MacPro for one application that I can't move to Windows. So, the breadth of my experience is limited.

I had to forget and reconnect wireless network after I updated to 14.4.1.

With GTX 680, there is some video corruption. Reducing resolution sometimes helps. This might be source related. Most youtube videos play okay at 1080p. This is using Firefox.

Mail works fine. All the other apps that I have tried work. I doubt games will work well.

Machine is a bit slow. Stability is good (better than Catalina with dosdude's patcher).

I miss PATA (DVD) support.

I forgot to mention that the OpenCore-Patcher checks for updates and can update to latest version when it is installed on the target system.

 

[pullman]

Brilliant, thank you so much for posting back. I will think about it, perhaps I'll try Ventura for fun and make a comparison with Monterey. I'll see how much time I have (never enough is the answer).

I only use MacPro for one application that I can't move to Windows. So, the breadth of my experience is limited.

I had to forget and reconnect wireless network after I updated to 14.4.1.

With GTX 680, there is some video corruption. Reducing resolution sometimes helps. This might be source related. Most youtube videos play okay at 1080p. This is using Firefox.

Mail works fine. All the other apps that I have tried work. I doubt games will work well.

Machine is a bit slow. Stability is good (better than Catalina with dosdude's patcher).

I miss PATA (DVD) support.

I forgot to mention that the OpenCore-Patcher checks for updates and can update to latest version when it is installed on the target system.

 

[soos]

I only use MacPro for one application that I can't move to Windows. So, the breadth of my experience is limited.

I had to forget and reconnect wireless network after I updated to 14.4.1.

With GTX 680, there is some video corruption. Reducing resolution sometimes helps. This might be source related. Most youtube videos play okay at 1080p. This is using Firefox.

Mail works fine. All the other apps that I have tried work. I doubt games will work well.

Machine is a bit slow. Stability is good (better than Catalina with dosdude's patcher).

I miss PATA (DVD) support.

I forgot to mention that the OpenCore-Patcher checks for updates and can update to latest version when it is installed on the target system.

Thanks for the advice. I too have a 3,1 with GTX680 using dosdude Catalina. As you know Display port does not work with Catalina. Will the Display port work if I upgrade to Sonoma using OCLP?

 

[madmac66]

Hi everyone.

It's been some time since I last tried to install Big Sur on My MacPro 3,1 using the OpenCore patcher. I was not successful then and I gave up trying and settled on Mojave using dosdude patcher, which has worked great - flawlessly - ever since.

I am at a point where I want to ditch Adobe and move to Affinity, and that requires at least Catalina. But I figured I would attempt another shot at Big Sur. Its been a while and there may have been some updates/improvements/breakthroughs in the last two years so I may have a better time of it.

The issue I ran into was that to have OpenCore work I had to remove my stock video card. I have a non-stock Metal card but it is not flashed so I dont get a boot screen. Without the boot screen I am unable to see the OpenCore patched boot volume. And so I'm stuck in no-go land.

Is there any new magic way of getting around this - short of forking out for a certified Mac flashed Metal card?

Or am I just at the end of the road with this thing?

 

[madmac66]

Hahaha. Kept PRAM resetting and on the 4th try I got the welcome screen for Monterey.

Very slow response but I’ll take it. Then it reboots and I’m back to where I started. I continue with another PRAM reset and now I’m in to the setup for Monterey.

So I’ve finished the install and now it’s all working perfectly

Hey Ed, coupla questions for ya.

The GT630 you bought for this install, was it a Mac flashed card, or a bog stock PC one off Ebay?

When you said you reset PRAM 4 times, was this holding the keys down until the chimes rang 4 times? Or going through the whole process, failing, and trying again 4 times?

From my memory of my failed attempts, resetting the PRAM reset the SIP back to on, and I think it needed to be off. So round in circles I went. But its been a while and I want to try again and am always given hope by other success stories.

Cheers

 

[madmac66]

madmac66,

Just curious if you ever were able to resolve this issue.

I've got the same exact setup with the GTX 760 and the same post boot issues. As per MacHosehead's method, I was able to re-install the EFI portion of my hard drive and boot from it, however, the boot sequence freezes midway and I haven't figured out how to proceed from there.

Hi Steve

No I never found a solution. I just gave up and went to dosdude Mojave patch. So easy and flawless in comparison. But its been a while and I'm ready to try again. Maybe.

Did you ever find success?

 

[madmac66]

Hi folks, after fighting for a long time to get Ventura installed and running successfully and smoothly on my 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 I have FINALLY succeeded! 🥳 ...um... except... uh... I can't get BLUETOOTH working! 🤨😩

So any help in getting BT working is appreciated.

Here's where I'm at so far...

I obtained one of those Broadcom WiFi + BT combo cards (the BCM943602CDP) that macOS is said to support natively, and I purchased an adapter for it (mini PCIe to 1.25mm wireless adapter) as well.

Also, I think I read somewhere that the BT 4.x part of those combo cards are still USB devices and only get power from the PCIe port, therefore requiring USB connectivity in order for the data part of the card to actually work. Thus the cable soldered to the D+ and D- pins on the adapter card, in which the Broadcom card sits to connect to my Mac Pro, must be plugged into a USB 2.0 port somewhere on the mac in order for the BT part of the card to function.

However, when I plug in the BT USB cable to any USB port before powering on the machine, when the machine is subsequently powered on, the computer hangs during boot (chimes but hangs at the OCLP boot picker screen, or sometimes it hangs before the OCLP boot picker screen ever posts to the active display).

I've even tried USB 2.0 hubs to avoid the issues macOS Ventura has with the built in USB ports of the Mac Pro 3,1 (I remember reading somewhere that USB 1.1 support is either gone, or no good, in macOS Ventura, and thus all built-in / native USB ports on the Mac Pro 3,1 are unreliable because they default to USB 1.1 until a USB 2.0 device or USB 2.0 hub is connected to them. So I made sure a USB 2.0 hub sits between all USB device connected to the Mac Pro 3,1).

Yet even after all of the above I can't get the Bluetooth part of the Broadcom combo card to work in Ventura with my 2008 Mac Pro 3,1. (WiFi works great by the way, and at 802.11ac speeds! woot woot! ...it's just Bluetooth that isn't working.)

...I even pulled the working BCM943602CDP card from my Mac Pro 5,1 (which runs fine in Ventura on that machine) and threw it into my 3,1 and got the same sad results of BT not working. I then put the BCM card I got off eBay for the 3,1 into my Mac Pro 5,1 and it works there just fine. So that verifies the Broadcom card works and that the issue must reside somewhere else.)

Furthermore, I even went as far as to throw more cash at the problem and purchased a BCM94360CD, at the random chance the Mac Pro 3,1 likes that better than the BCM943602CDP card. ...but no joy with that combo card either. Same behavior with the BCM94360CD card as with the BCM943602CDP card.

So any suggestions or help in this regard would be most welcome. THANKS!

PS. in the event it might help someone else, the key that unlocked the successful install and running of macOS Ventura for me on my Mac Pro 3,1 was a comment from someone in the OCLP's discord server who told me OCLP has a much better chance for succeeding if the OCLP bootable USB installer is downloaded and build on the system it will be used to install macOS on AND the hardware in that system is already all installed so that during the building of the installed OCLP knows what all to include (or something to that affect anyway).

I commented to them that it's hard to do that on a Mac Pro when there's no EFI boot picker screen visible with the GPU I'll have in my final config of the machine. (historically I would start my OCLP install of macOS with the GPU native to that Mac Pro, usually one that doesn't support the Metal API, so I could see the native (hold down option) EFI boot picker screen. Then after macOS was installed successfully via OCLP, I would power down and swap GPUs for a METAL supported GPU. And on a 5,1 Mac Pro that approach used to work (at least that's how it worked for me with macOS Monterey). But that approach doesn't work with Ventura on the cMP 3,1 or the 5,1 (at least not for me). Instead, after successful install & then shutdown, swap GPU and boot up, I wouldn't get any output to the display after the OCLP boot picker screen briefly shows up. ...anyway... I'm off on a tangent. Back to what I did to get macOS Ventura running on my Mac Pro 3,1...

I started with a native Mac Pro 3,1 hardware config that is supported by OS X El Capitan and then performed a fresh install of El Capitan to a SATA SSD.

Then once El Capitan was up and running, I logged into El Capitan and download DosDude1's Catalina Patcher and created a USB installer of Catalina using said Catalina Patcher app.

I then shutdown my cMP 3,1 and swapped out the El Cap SSD for a blank SATA SSD to install Catalina. Kept the newly created bootable USB Catalina install in the machine, held down the option key and booted the Mac Pro. (I installed Catalina to a new SSD so I could preserve the El Capitan SSD in the event I might ever need to boot back into El Cap.)

Once Catalina was successfully installed on my Mac Pro 3,1 I powered down the machine and started to swap out hardware for upgraded hardware I wanted in my final build....

--> removed the SSD and installed a 4x PCIe to NVMe card with a 1TB NVMe drive mounted to it.

--> removed the old GPU and installed a METAL API compatible GPU (Radeon RX 590).

--> installed a USB 3.x PCIe card.

--> removed the original WiFi card.

--> removed the original Bluetooth card.

--> installed the BCM943602CDP WiFi + BT combo card with adapter.

I then powered on the machine and let it boot right into macOS Catalina.

While logged into Catalina, with all the updated hardware in the machine, I downloaded and installed the OCLP (OpenCore Legacy Patcher) app version 0.6.8. I then used the OCLP app to download and create an OCLP macOS Ventura USB installer for the host model (Mac Pro 3,1). However, before building and installing OC to disk, I went into the settings section of the OCLP app and in the "Build" tab added a check mark to "NVMe Booting" option since I had already updated the firmware of my Mac Pro 3,1 to support booting from NVMe. Then I clicked "Build and Install OpenCore" and selected the USB installed flash drive for where the OCLP app would install OC. I then powered down the machine.

Having previously reformatted the NVMe drive so that it didn't have any bootable image/OS on it I powered on the machine with only the USB installer and the NVMe drive as the only drives in they stem. (NOTE the USB installed had to be plugged into a USB 2.0 hub that was connected to the machine, instead of connecting it to a USB port directly on the Mac Pro.

I then trusted that the native EFI boot picker screen that I could NOT see since my GPU wasn't supported for displaying that, would default to the EFI boot option on the USB installer, and thankfully it did, verified by the fact that after a short time the OCLP boot picker screen appeared on my display! Hurray!

At the OCLP boot picker screen I selected "Install mac OS....". The macOS installed launched and brought me to the familiar page where I could launch Disk Utility or other utilities or select "Install mac OS Ventura". I selected Install Mac OS Ventura and selected my NVMe drive as the target for the install and the install process began!

The machine did reboot a few times during install but most every time it continued on with the install just as it should, except for a few times (I think only twice) when the screen went blank and I couldn't tell if it was making progress or not. When that happened I patiently waited a good 10 to 20min in case it was doing something and then, choose to power cycle it by holding in the power button when I felt confident it was stuck. Thankfully however, each time it powered back on it went to the OCLP boot picket screen where I could choose the boot drive icon option as opposed to the "install macOS" icon option and the install would continue. After like 4 reboots the install finished and macOS Ventura was up! ...and all is running well except the no bluetooth thing.

Thank you so much 1010 this is an incredible write up with so much detail. Gives me hope to try and push through again, especially with all the sequence of installing and removing hardware. So helpful

Can I ask how you built your firmware to accept NVMe cards?

Cheers

 

[freqrider]

Hi everyone.

It's been some time since I last tried to install Big Sur on My MacPro 3,1 using the OpenCore patcher. I was not successful then and I gave up trying and settled on Mojave using dosdude patcher, which has worked great - flawlessly - ever since.

I am at a point where I want to ditch Adobe and move to Affinity, and that requires at least Catalina. But I figured I would attempt another shot at Big Sur. Its been a while and there may have been some updates/improvements/breakthroughs in the last two years so I may have a better time of it.

The issue I ran into was that to have OpenCore work I had to remove my stock video card. I have a non-stock Metal card but it is not flashed so I dont get a boot screen. Without the boot screen I am unable to see the OpenCore patched boot volume. And so I'm stuck in no-go land.

Is there any new magic way of getting around this - short of forking out for a certified Mac flashed Metal card?

Or am I just at the end of the road with this thing?

The solution is simple. Just install OCLP to disk first off. Then reboot without holding 'Option' key. OpenCore will now provide you a bootscreen to choose the installer. Also, be sure to remove orig bluetooth card. It will cause kernel panics on Big Sur and above. I recommend Monterey. Runs great on the 3,1. (As does Sonoma if you have ample ram, ssd.)